


paper cut tigers starting to bleed

by myillusionsgone



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Symbolism, mentions of Minerva Orland, post gmg but before the following arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myillusionsgone/pseuds/myillusionsgone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m the ghost of the one everyone once knew and you are like a fallen star, beautiful but tragic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paper cut tigers starting to bleed

For the first time in what felt to be a lifetime, Sting Eucliffe did not feel like he was up for the challenges ahead of him. It had not been him who had decided that he would be master of his guild, this had been the decision the lady, the former master’s daughter had made. And right now, Sting did not quite understand what on earth Minerva Orland had been thinking when she had used the general confusion after Sting had struck down her father to put him onto the big chair.

The last time he had felt this powerless, the last time everything inside of him had screamed _‘how is this supposed to work out?’_ had been when Weisslogia had told him to slay him. Back then, he had felt just as lost but then, the anchor that had been supposed to hold his ship in place had suddenly failed him, now he was supposed to steer an even bigger ship across a stormy sea on an uncharted course.

Minerva was someone who lived life like it was one huge game of chess and as if she was the only one who knew the position of all pieces, the only one who was an active player. Everyone else – and Sting did not delude himself by thinking he was any different – were merely pawns, to be pushed around on the board, to be sacrificed when the lady saw it fit.

And Minerva would have been foolish if she had passed on her position as the sole king on the board – her board – to Sting and as everyone knew, she was not foolish and she rarely, if ever, miscalculated because she was the one who had been born for the battle.

No one was born as a user of God of War magic unless there seemed to be a certain interest fate held to see this person fight, win and survive and although Sting was not too sure how he was supposed to feel about the woman who had disappeared before the dragons had attacked but he could not deny that a woman who had always come out on top of everything in some way was a survivor of sorts.

A part of him wanted to yell at her, ask her why she had rested the heavy burden of leadership on his shoulders although he felt like a little boy whenever he was in the presence of seasoned guild masters like Master Babasama of Lamia Scale who had led their guilds through times of war and strive. True, he had said that he intended to reform Sabertooth but he had no idea whatsoever where to start because once he had gained a better sight – defeat could be eye-opening, in a way – he had seen the problems of his guild but there had been problems everywhere and he was not even sure how he was supposed to fix it all, even with a Rogue who had silently offered support and a Yukino who had done the same, just a little more hesitant because the old Sabertooth had attacked her dignity and this was a stain on her memory that would take a long time to fade – even though she would be better off never entire forgiving the guild for this.

Frankly, his head was aching and the way he was aimlessly strolling through Crocus did not help him to clear his mind – perhaps because there were some traces left from the alcohol he had consumed the other day during the ball although Rogue swore that dragon slayers did not have to deal with hangovers.

(Or maybe this only applied to guys who could turn their bodies into shadows, who knew.)

Walking through the darkened town, he tried not to think about the destruction he had seen (and sometimes caused) mere days ago and especially not about the fact that some corrupted future version of his best friend had not just killed Sting’s future self but had also been the one to cause the disaster.

But he had been circling around the same three points of town for the past two hours and he was still not any further with rationalising that just because _some_ future self of Rogue had ended up all twisted, it did not mean that the Rogue he knew and fought back-to-back with would end up the same way.

When he thought about the battles the city had seen, he was nearly surprised about the amount of people – mostly mages, some he even remembered the names of – were walking amidst the rubble as well. Not all guilds had returned to their bases yet – Mermaid Heel and Lamia Scale were still around, some mages helping with the reconstruction while Fairy Tail had left to be celebrated – and in the distance, he spotted two Mermaids who were lifting up large boulders with their Gravity Magic.

In a way, this encouraged him more than it probably should but he could not deny that there was something strangely comforting in the way the world kept turning, kept recovering from even the most devastating hits.

However, truth be told, Sting had not expected to run into anyone when he had climbed up the nearly destroyed tower – the one that was kept from collapsing with magic – but as it had turned out, there was no such thing as a calm place to think anywhere in Crocus.

The bench by the river which he had sought out first had been taken by the bald wizard saint who had defeated Orga with a single blow and although the man had seemed to be lost in his meditation, Sting had wisely decided against disturbing Lamia Scale’s ace because in his experience, people held little love for being dragged out of their meditation for no good reason. And when Rogue who was his friend had thrown him halfway across the room before he had realised who had disturbed him, Sting did not want to find out what the earth mage might do.

A more rational part of him knew that if he wanted genuine advise from someone who was wise beyond his years, talking to Jura Neekis – even at the risk of disturbing his meditation – would be the way to go but he did not feel like he still was the same man who had arrived for the Games at the end of the last month. If anything, he felt like the ghost of that man.

Then, everything had seemed so easy, so simple to him. Fight some fights, win the Games, go back to the usual business. He had known what he had been supposed to do, then. There had been a clear path that had been intended for him and all he had had to do was follow it.

Right now, Sting did not even feel like he was seen by anyone, he felt like he had turned into some optical illusion, into something that was never seen quite correctly. But then, how was anyone supposed to see him the way he wanted to be seen when he did not even know who he was after everything that had happened.

Therefore, the tower had seemed to be the ideal spot to think about everything and more but when he reached the top, he came to face a young woman he had seen before. For once, during previous Games when she had nearly gotten disqualified for moving the large statues that surrounded the arena with her magic. Secondly, as far as he remembered, her fiancé had talked to her during his fight against the Net Magic user of Mermaid Heel.

(Only that in spite of his declaration of love, Ren Akatsuki had continued to flirt with any woman remotely attractive which was probably not the point of a committed relationship.)

(But it was not like this was any of Sting’s business, he had merely taken note of it.)

“…didn’t know someone was here already,” he said as he stopped behind her, leaning against the wall and looking at the town, trying to figure out whether or not he liked the view from the top.

“As long as you stay silent,” she started as she twirled some kind of flower between the fingers of her left hand while her right was holding the entire bouquet, “I won’t mind sharing.”

“Your fiancé seems to think that the same applies to him,” Sting started before he briefly wanted to kick himself – but then, he decided to be stupid enough to see it through. “I mean – he’s the guy who flirts with pretty much everyone, right?”

He did not add that the Air mage had even flirted with Yukino which in itself should be some kind of crime although Sting could not quite pinpoint why, mostly because he was nearly sure that the pink-haired woman did not need any examples of her fiancé’s behaviour.

The way she scowled at him when she looked over her shoulder and for a moment, he thought that she would get up and try to land a punch on him but then, she ripped apart the flower in her hand and let the petals fall onto the ruins below them. “I got bigger worries at the moment than Ren Akatsuki,” she said after a moment before she reached for the next flower – white as well, funeral flowers if his memory did not deceive him completely and if he had listened right when the florist had told him about the meaning of flowers when he had once asked for some.

A part of him tried to remember whether he had heard anything about a Lamia Scale mage dying during the dragon’s attack but as far as he remembered, there had been none.

“Lost someone?” he asked as he tried to remember what he had felt like when he had thought that Lector who was his companion, his friend was lost forever.

For a moment, the Lamia Scale mage was silent while she tore apart the next flower as well, throwing it into the night breeze with a flick of her wrist. “No,” she said but he did not need the senses of a Dragon Slayer to her the screams inside of her, the screams that were so loud that it was a miracle that he had not gone deaf yet.

“You wouldn’t be sitting on a deserted tower in the middle of night with a bunch of funeral flowers if you hadn’t lost someone,” he shrugged as he sat down on the other side of the flowers, grabbing one and tearing it apart petal by petal, hoping that the rather silly action would wipe away his thoughts.

“If I wanted to listen to witty comments, I would have stayed with Yuuka at the inn,” she said with a scoff as she threw him a fierce glare and he realised – and was pleasantly surprised by this – that she was not afraid at all of him, even though he was one of the strongest mages of his guild, the guild that had been named the strongest for seven years running, while she had been benched in favour of someone younger, someone less experienced.

He knew that it was somewhat inappropriate to liken a woman who could, as Yukino had once mentioned when they had discussed possible opponents, make Celestial Spirits do whatever she wanted them to with a flick of her wrists to a star but somehow, it seemed fitting because something about the way the Lamia Scale mage was generally seen in her guild reminded him of a star that had fallen from the skies.

Although no one had ever said it out loud, it had seemed like she had fallen from her guild master’s grace but since Master Babasama was kinder than Master Jiemma, she had allowed the puppeteer to stay around. There was no point in denying that there was always some kind of gossip between the mages of different guilds about a third guild’s mages and more than one person had suggested that in the end, the guild had harmed itself.

Because as it had turned out, a guild’s strength was measured not by the power of their strongest member – in which case Lamia Scale certainly would be the strongest, in Sting’s opinion, because Jura Neekis united raw strength with elaborate skill – but by the power they possessed when they all worked together and in this case, it might be wise not to cast someone who could get into people’s heads and hearts with ease out of the heavens.

(There had been a poem Rufus had recited once, about stars that fell from the skies and never made it back home again and for Sherry’s sake, Sting hoped that she would find her way back.)

“…suppose that if sass was a field of competition, they would’ve send you into the arena,” he said as he watched how the petals twirled in midair before they fell to the ground.

“Yes,” she said as she rolled her eyes at him before she bit her lip so hard that he could smell her blood. “You felt it too? How time was reset? I saw … _before_ , you know, someone die.”

The way she said ‘before’ made it extremely clear what she meant, that someone had fallen victim to an attack in front of her eyes only to be back on his feet again all of a sudden. He had not seen something similar but he had heard rumours about the same thing happening to Fairy Tail’s ice user and Bacchus Groh had been mumbling a story about dying and coming back to life into his drink during the ball but Sting had not paid too much attention to him then.

(There was maybe a saying that drunk words were sober thoughts but the Dragon Slayer was not too keen on hearing any thoughts of this man, sober or not.)

(After all, this was the man who felt like Quattro Puppies was an acceptable guild name.)

“I didn’t saw anyone die, not that day,” he said quietly and for some reason, he felt like she was someone he could tell – not today, but one day – about the way he had truly felt when he had killed Weisslogia. Because although he had been bragging about this event for a long time, it was nothing he had been remotely proud of, especially since he usually made it sound like a heroic fight while in truth, he had merely released a pained creature from said pain.

(And being merciful did not always warrant great amounts of courage.)

“Right, you killed your dragon,” she said drily and there was no disapproval in her voice and he remembered, once again, that the emblem of her guild showed a woman who was half snake and that there was a vast difference between the general mindset of her guild and the guild the Third Generation Dragon Slayers belonged to; in Lamia, mages understood the importance of sacrifices and difficult decisions better because they did not live in a daydream where good always triumphed over evil without having to pay the price for the victory.

“…yeah,” he said as he scratched his neck, “that I did indeed.”

She did not ask about his reasoning as she rubbed a smudge of dirt off her cheek with her thumb, her movements slow and methodical. “I think,” she started as she looked back at the town that was growing more and more silent below them as the night covered it in even more darkness, “that you should have fought.”

It was not the first time someone had told him this but it was the first time it was not necessarily an accusation and sounded like a mere observation, like something she had thought while she had been watching the scene. However, there was little doubt on his mind that she had some kind of reasoning for the statement at well, one she would explain to him.

“Not for yourself or anyone else,” she continued as she dangled her legs over the edge, “but for the guild … it’s kinda sad to watch someone you believe in just give up … I wasn’t happy with Lia at all…” she added with a frown as she tore apart another flower. “Of course, she was disadvantaged but…”

“She let her opponent walk all over her, yeah,” he said with a shrug as he wondered what it felt like to have been one of the stars of a respected guild only to be replaced by someone who dropped all defences just because two opponents attacked with the ‘unison of their love’ – something like this happened to a girl, it did not happen to a woman.

(He was no expert for strategy but he recognised a questionable decision when he saw it.)

“It was a little embarrassing for me,” she said as she pressed her lips into a thin line before she shook her head and swatted away some insect like it was an unbidden thought.

“She’ll learn from it,” he said although he realised that it was the weakest attempt on comforting someone he had been a part of in countless years, mostly because the phrase ‘defeat makes you wiser’ was one that tasted old and stale on his tongue because it had been said a million times and had rarely been genuine.

“I do hope so, yes,” she said with a sigh while more white petals were carried away with the wind that grew slowly more and more chilly, not that she seemed to notice.

“We all were young and foolish at some point,” he added as he stared off into the distance.

“I got five years on you, Eucliffe,” she said as she snorted, a crooked smile crossing her face, “and I personally think that in your age, people are still young and foolish.”

He rolled his eyes and did not reply as he continued to gaze into the distance, trying to catch sight of a star or two but the lights of the city below them – no matter how far away and hazy – outshone the stars in the cloudy skies. For a moment, he was silent as he closed his eyes and just breathed in the chilly night air but then, he opened an eye again and looked down at the town that was blurring below him as finally, he felt how his head started to clear and his mind came to rest.

“There’s a lot of beauty, even in destruction,” she said quietly from where she was tearing apart the last one of the flowers and for a moment, he wondered if she even saw beauty in her own destruction before he decided against it, that would be a bit too rude, even for him because he did hardly know her and to make assumptions on how much watching someone die – even if the death had not been permanent – had messed with her.

“…well, it’s at least a good basis for rebuild,” he said with a shrug, generally inclined to agree with her although he would have chosen different words to express the sentiment.

“Certainly,” she nodded as the last petals swayed in the cool summer night winds. “Well, suppose I should be heading back before Jura goes out to look for me.”

For a moment, he silently watched as she dusted off her clothes but then, he cleared his throat. “It wasn’t just a friend who died, right?” he asked calmly although he was not sure where he was taking this knowledge from all of a sudden. Her guild was hardly known to be open with their little secrets and this attitude was shared be the guild mages as well so even if there was more to destruction of flowers, there was little chance that she would explain.

For a moment, her silhouette was nothing but a black shadow again dark blue skies but then, she turned and wrapped her arms around herself. “White flowers aren’t funeral flowers were I come from,” she said as she brushed back a strand of her hair, “to me, they represent rebirth rather than death. And in a way, you could say, a long period of winter has ended for me amidst the destruction. Now, sleep well,” she added before she climbed down the tower and disappeared into the blurry town below him.


End file.
